Dialog is tricky for me. I find it hard to juggle expressions, exposition, thoughts and speech in a way that reads seamlessly and natural, and since my current novel has a large element of mystery to it, my main character does an awful lot of conversating in her hunt for information. How to keep it interesting?

Dialog scenes have (more or less) three elements: The dialog itself, the stage business surrounding it, and the characters’ mental reaction to what’s going on.

Today I’m going to tackle the stage business end of things.

When I edit my manuscript, I go through with a green highlighter and tag every boring stage business placeholder. I have a few favorites that I find myself using over and over, but generally anything that’s a simple two-word sentence describing a mundane action can go on this list:

• She shrugged
• He nodded
• He looked up/she met his gaze/he looked away/etc.
• She sighed
• She cleared her throat
• He frowned
• She hesitated

Why do I put those in? Because it seems like there should be a break in the dialog. If I was writing a script, I’d just write “beat” and let the actors give my dialog life, but in a novel I can’t be so lazy. At the same time, I don’t want to bog down my dialog with long-winded descriptions of my characters doing mundane tasks. “How was your day, babe?” she asked, sliding the key into the ignition with a single crisp movement, turning the key and letting the clutch out slowly. “It was fine,” he said, leaning over to kiss her and then fastening his seat belt with a sharp click. The engine shuddered to life….

It’s time to turn to the experts.

This week’s exercise: Photocopy several distinct dialog scenes from a writer you admire, then go through them and underline the attributions and the stage business in two different colors. Note both the frequency of use, as well as the words and phrases that are used.

I used The Likeness by Tana French, which I just devoured. French does a lovely job writing a conversation between multiple characters without losing the reader, and using stage business to bring them to life. For a big chunk of the book the main character Cassie bounces back and forth between rambling conversations over dinner or cigarettes to late-night phone conversations with her handler back at the police department. And rarely, if ever, does French throw out a “she shrugged,” “he sighed.”

“Look who’s feeling better,” Daniel said, smiling across at me.

“Chatterbox,” said Justin, putting another slice of toast on my plate. “Just out of curiosity, have you ever stayed quiet for more than five minutes at a stretch?”

“I have so. I had laryngitis once, when I was nine, and I couldn’t say a single word for five days. It was awful. Everyone kept bringing me chicken soup and comic books and boring stuff, and I kept trying to explain that I felt totally fine and I wanted to get up, but they just told me to be quiet and rest my throat. When you were little, did you ever–”

“Dammit,” Abby said suddenly, looking up from her paper. “Those cherries. The best-by date was yesterday. Is anyone still hungry? We could put them in pancakes or something.”

“I’ve never heard of cherry pancakes,” Justin said. “It sounds disgusting.”

“I don’t see why. If you can have blueberry pancakes–”

“And cherry scones,” I pointed out, through toast.

“That’s a different principle entirely,” Daniel said. “Candied cherries. The acidity and moisture levels–”

“We could try it. They cost about a million quid; I’m not just leaving them to rot.”

“I’ll try anything,” I said helpfully. “I’d have some cherry pancakes.”

“Oh God, let’s not,” said Justin with a little shudder of distaste. “Let’s just take the cherries into college and have them with lunch.”

“Rafe’s not getting any,” Abby said, folding the paper away and heading for the fridge. “You know that weird smell off his bag? Half a banana he stuck in the inside pocket and forgot about. From now on we don’t feed him anything we can’t actually watch him eat. Lex, give me a hand wrapping them up?”

One thing that French does well is that her dialog is charming and witty to read. All of her dialog scenes count toward the book, but to be honest if she’d written a 40-page scene where the Whitethorn House housemates talked about nothing but squid, I’d still have loved it, because listening to them talk was so enjoyable. But more about the dialog content in another post.

Now that you’ve got things underlined, go through and take note of the frequency of the attributions and the stage business. Is the scene centered around an activity that keeps the characters busy? If they’re just sitting around (as in this scene), what stage business does the author give them to do? Does it distract or add to the dialog? Does it give you extra clues as to the meaning behind the dialog?

Take a scene that’s good and long–ten pages or so. On a separate paper, classify the types of stage business into different categories. I used another housemate conversation near the end of the book (no excerpt, because I didn’t want to include spoilers). It’s an incredibly tense conversation, and the housemates do nothing physically except for drink and smoke.

My categories:

• Looking: She was watching me carefully. She met Rafe’s eyes calmly, unblinking.
• Sighs and Breathing: Justin whispered, a tiny devastated breath. Rafe said, on a long-suffering sigh.
• Body Language: Justin opened his mouth, then shut it again and bit his lips. Rafe said helpfully, flopping back onto the sofa.
• Smoking and Drinking: Rafe said, through a cigarette (2x). Rade said, tipping his head back and blowing smoke at the ceiling.
• Laughing and Smiling: Rafe laughed, a small rough sound. Rafe said, grinning at me.
• Adverbs and Vocal Descriptions: Justin said, softly and very sadly. Abby said softly, almost to herself. There was a high precarious wobble in his voice. My voice was rising and I let it.

Now go back and edit your own dialog scenes with this new arsenal of descriptive phrases, keeping in mind the rhythms and frequency of usage you’ve seen in the sample conversations.

So go off now and study the greats! May your dialog attributions sparkle and glow.

When I started this blog, I had high intentions for it. No matter if anyone else ever read it, I planned on using it as a motivational tool for my own little writing course. I would read books and analyze them for their style and voice, their pacing, their world-building, etc. I would treat blogging like an assignment for school, and therefore I would keep on track.

Of course I didn’t.

But I’ve kept on reading, and I’ve kept on thinking, and I have quite a few books I’ve recently finished that I want to post about. My thought here is that if I make this little promise right here and now, in words, I’ll actually do it.

So. Coming up, look for:

• On Creating an Imaginary World that Looks an Awful Lot Like the Real World: Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn and The Gaslight Dogs by Karin Lowachee.
• On Scenes and Pacing: Unholy Ghosts by Stacia Kane.
• On Voice: In the Woods by Tana French.